Mendez said, “This room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of frustration. But this is also a room where, as my Secular Humanist tradition stresses, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we have differences.”

This brave move by Rep. Mendez is worthy of recognition by his constituents, not only because he opened himself up to criticism from members of the Religious Right, but because he showed people all across the nation that nonreligious government officials exist.

Being a nonreligious politician in America is challenging, especially in a conservative state like Arizona. What he did took strength, and his example will no doubt serve as a light in the darkness to other closeted atheists, agnostics, humanists, and freethinkers in government.